Made in Brooklyn, NY - est. 1983

OK, so I've taken P. J. O'Rourke's quote out of context. Nonetheless, it's indeed in his recent New York Times book review, Venti Capitalists. His critique of Starbucked takes a few unorthodox paternalistic turns, but you can't dispute his apparent fondness for the author, Taylor Clark.

Clark makes much of Starbucks’s discovery that it could put one store close to another and both could thrive. But you can line a street with fire hydrants and dogs will use them all; that’s not necessarily a recipe for wealth, especially if you try to charge the dogs.

Should his analogy lead us to believe that going to Starbucks is like pissing in public? Maybe he's not far off. Nonetheless, the dogs keep paying -- a lot.

Now, Mr. O'Rourke may trivialize the success Starbucks has had with cannibalization, but as far as I know, it was a rather novel (and fruitful) strategy. The company may not have been the first to actively cannibalize its own stores, but it certainly did so with unprecedented success.

First, New Zealand is trying to save the kiwi. See, you didn't even have to read the article to learn that.

Second, the article doesn't expand on how this will affect Fogbugz -- FogCreek (maker of FogBugz) founder Joel Spolsky has yet to comment on the matter.

Third, the kiwi may be the result of cruel dare some creator was taking, but it's not to be taken lightly. The article cites some pretty compelling evidence of the ill-tempered nature of the kiwi:

Some kiwis are more aggressive than others.

"Some of them will charge right up to you and kick you on the leg before rushing off into the undergrowth," McLennan said. "There's plenty of footage around of kiwis chasing possums and kicking them and beating them up."

But this must have reminded one of our users, bobcat, of the plot suggestion I got that featured "redditor vs. alien" -- the reddit alien and a redditor (presumably in cartoon-form) would duel it out in the logo.

bobcat tried to get some submissions with this self post, but the anti-custom-reddit-logo-conspiracy must have all activated their auto down-voting scripts. So we're going to try again with this one now that it's "official"...

I wanted to refresh my memory about my favorite amendment in the U.S. Bill of Rights (the 3rd -- you'll never see British troops being quartered in my home!). So I did what most people do, typed a simple Google query:

USINFO - Error 404 - Page Not Foundusinfo.state.gov UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE. ... USINFO delivers information about current U.S. foreign policy and about American life and culture....usinfo.state.gov/pub/ - 19k

U.S. Bill of Rights not found? I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised...

Got a non-profit you think needs a nice end-of-the-year bump from reddit? Perhaps, you've heard of reddit, it's the self-described strongest supporter of Mister Splashy Pants. And to get Greenpeace to name a whale Mister Splashy Pants is no simple task.

A couple weeks ago, some redditors voiced their desire to go a step further and do some more good. The community had also recently helped an elderly woman after she got ripped off my a cruise line, so feelings of generosity and goodwill were at an all-time high for the Internet. Like always, we just tried to facilitate our community's awesomeness and then get out of the way.

Oh, and did I mention that our friends at xkcd, Randall and Davean, are teaming up with us for this fundraiser? We'll have some worthwhile giveaways (see announcement) for a bunch of donors. With our geek powers combined...

Deadline for the non-profit voting is 10pm (Eastern GMT-5) Wednesday the 19th. Submit or vote now.

Donations will open up at noon (Eastern GMT-5) on Thursday the 20th. If you'd like some real-life karma, or just know a few geeks who'd appreciate some nerd-schwag, please pass this along. Thanks.

Dozens of striking film and TV writers are negotiating with venture capitalists to set up companies that would bypass the Hollywood studio system and reach consumers with video entertainment on the Web.

About damn time, writers. You've always had the talent, now the barriers have fallen quite a bit between getting those great ideas out of your head and in front of people.

There's an entire generation passing around great video clips from sites like YouTube. We don't care who's made it, as long as it's entertaining. One of the best Will Ferrell clips I've seen all year was on FunnyOrDie.com -- the Criterion Edition is worth a look, too.

Obviously, there will be successes and failures, but we'll all be better off in the end.

Your brothers and sisters in journalism are working their way toward this as well, thanks to feasible online revenue *gasp* models and maybe even a few brand-agnostic news aggregators. It's about time content was king, and the creators of it started getting treated that way. Or at least close to it; that whole Divine Right thing is bullshit.

It's well over a year old now, but Pierre keps getting some attention on YouTube.

From the department of unsolicited advice, a YouTube commenter named polytope13 recently laid the smack down on him:

Web 2.0 is just like the "Web 1.0" bubble except without the vast amounts of money being thrown at useless people like this here "consultant with 20 years of experience, an MBA and former used car salesman."

Here are a couple business tips to brush up with on that MBA: Don't use self-depreciating humor against your own product or services. And don't criticize Google's website when your Internet success does not come anywhere near Google's.

Oh yes, there's more. Let 'um have it, polytope13!

One more tip: If you're trying to do serious business, adhere to serious business attire. Aren't you supposed to be the "consultant" in these projects? Why then are you dressed like the freelance, LSD fueled graphics designer?

We did get a bunch of Australian redditors to show up for our free beer, though (and a number of American and Canadian ones, too). It was at a charming pub called Hero of Waterloo (Duke of Wellington perhaps? Definitely not Napoleon, heh). We didn't have a clue where to host the event, so LonelyPlanet came through with a good recommendation.

By around 10, it was time for everyone to start impersonating everyone else's accent. I think the Australians do a pretty good "American," but it's usually a bit too Southern for my taste. Apparently all of our Australian accents just suck.

Oh well. It was great to meet real live Australian redditors (and even bought drinks for the founder of Kwoff, an Aussie Pligg-powered social news site. And by the end of the night there was the obligatory group photo for all the folks who'd stuck around long enough and wanted to end up as a couple pixels on today's reddit logo.